Sean Hannity of Fox News one of the big losers of 2012

In a fitting coda to 2012, we’ve learned that the ratings for rock-ribbed conservative Sean Hannity cratered after Barack Obama won his second term, with viewers tuning out the Fox News Channel talk-show host in droves.

According to Nielsen numbers, Hannity lost around half of his audience in the weeks after the election, while his Fox News colleague Bill O’Reilly — who steadfastly refuses to identify himself politically as a conservative — retained around 70% of his audience.

So what happened to Hannity?

The going wisdom is that viewers who basked in his preelection anti-Obama rhetoric tuned him out when they were stunned to wake up on Nov. 7 and discover that the President had won a second term — a scenario that Hannity had all but promised could never happen.

Before the election, Hannity was riding high in the ratings and topped thought leaders on the right, like Dick Morris, Ann Coulter, Peggy Noonan and talk radio bulldog Mark Levin, who predicted Obama would lose in a landslide.

Those voices — and many others like them — all but drove the political coverage on Fox News, talk radio and conservative blogs.

But as Conor Friedersdorf wrote in The Atlantic just after the election, “Outside the conservative media, the narrative was completely different.”

Because in reality, statistics proved the presidential race was in fact never even close — despite the lopsided picture delivered to faithful viewers by Hannity and those who shared his opinions.

Wrote Friedersdorf: “The right-leaning outlets like Fox News and Rush Limbaugh’s show are far more intellectually closed than CNN or public radio. If you’re a rank-and-file conservative, you’re probably ready to acknowledge that ideologically friendly media didn’t accurately inform you about Election 2012. Some pundits engaged in wishful thinking; others feigned confidence in hopes that it would be a self-fulfilling prophecy; still others decided it was smart to keep telling right-leaning audiences what they wanted to hear.”

And when the dust settled, it turns out Hannity’s viewers opted to vote again — with their remotes.

When you outright lie to your viewers on a nightly basis before long even the dumb ones get tired of getting kicked in the teeth every night. Hannity would tell you matter of factly that all those poll numbers where wrong and he (with no facts to back it up) was right …just watch..!! ….what a bunch of liars on that network. and now it’s proven

Big Dave if MSNBC lied to me about the news I sure as hell would not wacth or listen to anything they have to say. Why would you wonder about msnbc but NOT slam fox for the actuall lies they did tell….it was for over 2 weeks before the election they new dam well that Romney was losing…just as all the polls said…but NO,NO ..Fox and Hannity would Not let the truth get in there way…No Sir..!! Nite after Nite they reported that those polls were wrong (no facts) even hinting that the Lame streem Media was to blame…NOT the TRUTH as was being reported by everyone else. They are a bunch of LIARS…!! fact